Birmingham City’s Simone Magill announces pregnancy | OneFootball

Simone Magill (BCFC)

Birmingham City’s Simone Magill has announced that she and her husband Mark Rigby are expecting a baby.

The club confirmed the news on Wednesday after she told her team-mates in a video shared on social media.

She showed her fellow players her sonogram pictures, and said: “I’ve come up with a hundred different ways that I wanted to say this but I’ve been keeping a bit of a secret from you all!”

Head coach Amy Merricks said “We’re really proud of Si, she’s going to make an amazing parent. We’re looking forward to supporting her on this journey through her pregnancy and as her baby comes into the world, we’re excited to have a Bluenose baby!

“We want to keep Si in and around the environment as much as possible. She wants to remain sharp and play a critical part in this season. We’re looking forward to supporting her with her journey.”

The club have confirmed that medical and performance staff will support Magill throughout her pregnancy and beyond, and that she will continue light training with the team where possible.

Simone Magill: her football career

Magill joined Birmingham City last season from Aston Villa, having spent almost a decade at Everton prior to that.

The captain of Northern Ireland, she has almost a century of international caps to her credit. She missed out on most of Northern Ireland’s history-making Euros in 2022 as she tore her ACL in the opening match.

Magill told SheKicks.net earlier this year that she had completed her PhD thesis and was awaiting a date for her examination to receive her formal title of doctor.

She also spoke extensively about her ambitions with Birmingham City, saying: “The biggest reason that I came to Birmingham was the ambition and the drive to want to get back there and to try and be a part of that.

“We came so close last year, and we don’t want to really dwell on that too much, but it makes you even hungrier to want to go and make sure that that happens.”